Is Obama propping up Medicare Advantage until after the election?

The Democrats are screaming that Paul Ryan’s plan to save Medicare will gut Medicare and kill grandma and grandpa. The problem with that argument is that the Democrats have already dealt a serious blow to Medicare Advantage when they rammed Obamacare through Congress back in March 2010. The American Healthcare Education Coalition (AHEC) is a national non-profit, public-interest organization that pushes for free market solutions to our healthcare issues. They analyzed the impact Obamacare would have on Medicare Advantage and below is an except from their study.

The cuts to Medicare Advantage begin right away, with payment rates frozen in 2011 at their 2010 levels. The reimbursement rates for doctors continue to decline; between 2012 and 2017, the law phases in a new formula for setting maximum MA payments by region. This new formula will dramatically lower MA payments in every region of the country. The new law also makes large cuts to the payment rates for hospitals and other medical providers in the government-managed fee-forservice Medicare program, and a portion of these cuts automatically gets passed through to MA plans as well in the form of even lower maximum rates.

Facing these steep cuts, insurance companies that offer MA plans will be forced to make adjustments in their coverage, raise their premiums, increase their deductibles and co-payments, or eliminate many benefits. In response to ObamaCare’s new rules, some plans have already exited the market altogether, taking away many of seniors’ options for Medicare Advantage plans.

Furthermore, the Democrats consistently stressed before the passage of the law that anyone who liked his or her health insurance plan would be able to keep it under the new law. For millions of seniors who lose their Medicare Advantage plans, which rate highly for satisfaction among seniors, this promise now rings hollow.

Before ObamaCare passed, the chief actuary for Medicare expected MA enrollment to increase to about 14.8 million in 2017. Now, however, after passage, the chief actuary for Medicare predicts MA enrollment to fall to 7.4 million in 2017.

It now appears that the President’s administration is trying to prop up Medicare Advantage until after the election by devising a way to divert $8 billion from the Medicare slush fund to postpone the cuts for 2012 and temporarily restore Medicare Advantage funds. This smoke and mirrors tactic is designed to hide the fact that Obamacare severely guts Medicare Advantage, thus creating the illusion for senior citizens in an election year that the popular insurance plan is safe under Obamacare. Nothing could be further from the truth. You can read the entire article here>>

This is what this administration is about, smoke and mirrors. They can’t run on their record and they definitely can’t run on Obamacare. And they can’t afford losing the senior vote in what will be a very close election. So what do they do? They pull the wool over the eyes of our seniors. How pathetic is that. I hope someone in congress investigates this sham.

You know what bothers me the most about all this is how easily the people buy into the misinformation they’re spreading. They have people believing the Republicans want to push grandma off the cliff when in reality they already did two years ago.

Resistance

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